Opinion View from the LEFT

“Much of the resilience that the Indian economy has shown against the global recession has been due to greater governmental spending as well as healthy private consumer expenditures. The government’s share of expenditure increased from 9.6 per cent of GDP to nearly 10 per cent this year…This is mainly due to the fact that the 15th general elections were held during this period. The expenditure’s connected were larger than any stimulus package could have generated and importantly they directly reach the people without any middlemen or losses suffered due to faulty delivery mechanisms.”

This,however,it says is only a one-time expenditure and hence to be optimistic that such levels of spending will continue for the rest of the planned period would be highly erroneous. Besides,private consumer expenditures fell from 58 per cent to around only 56 per cent in April-June this year.

The article talks about the drought situation,which is estimated to lead to a decline in nearly 30 million tonnes of foodgrain production resulting in a dip agricultural GDP and further rise in prices and the not very encouraging import-export situation. The RBI has also in its annual report for 2008-09 forwards a lower estimate of a 6 per cent GDP growth rate for this year.

“It is therefore clear that while the economic optimism may create a ‘feel good factor’ it is far removed from a real assessment of our economic fundamentals…

What we need is an approach that puts people before profits. This can only happen when the government directly hikes public investment substantially. This would generate employment at a time when unemployment is on the rise due to the global recession,” it says.

Speaking up for truth

It seems the CPM still takes the views of former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee very seriously. An article in the edition (goes without saying that it was written by a political commentator) rebuts Chatterjee’s assertion that that Left had some foreknowledge that the cash for trust vote scam would come up in parliament. “It has become the practice of Somnath Chatterjee to level baseless charges against the CPM and the Left ever since he decided to cross over to the government side.” it says.

As for the cash for vote scam,it says the real “despicable attempt was the large scale bribery using illegal money by the agents of the ruling party to save its government. Hundreds of crores of rupees were spent to purchase MPs belonging to the opposition. 19 MPs belonging to the opposition defected to the ruling side.”

It says,“Chatterjee should have been worried about this brazen suborning of MPs and the farce it made of democratic norms,but strangely he has remained quiet about this assault on the dignity and values of parliamentary democracy while he was the speaker. While everybody knew about attempts to bribe MPs in the run up to the trust vote,“why did the then speaker not speak out against these immoral and criminal acts? He should have demanded a police investigation into the whole business of bribery of MPs.”

“The committee set up to investigate the affair of the cash produced in the House had recommended further investigation in the matter to pin down those responsible for wrongdoing. One would have thought the speaker would have asked for a CBI enquiry into the matter. But then that would have been very inconvenient for the powers that be,” it says. Interestingly,it also reminded Chatterjee how he had condemned attempts by the Narasimha Rao government to buy opposition MPs to defeat the no-confidence vote in 1993. “He had strongly condemned those illegal acts and demanded action — a case in which the former prime minister had to face trial,” it says.